


Legacy

by ussnicole



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: 1945, 1945!Gerard, 1964, 1964!Tyler, 1988, 1988!Pete, 1995, 1995!Brendon, 2006, 2006!Patrick, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bullying, Decades, Drug Abuse, Implied Sexual Content, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Suicide, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 20:43:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 14,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8682709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ussnicole/pseuds/ussnicole
Summary: A broken family through the decades.





	1. The Ghost Of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part One: The Soldiers
> 
> Gerard

A soft knock came at the door, followed by the sound of the door opening. The man inside turned away from the small crack of natural light that had permeated the room, shielding his face against his pillow. The room was small and dark, heavy black curtains drawn solemnly over the windows. There was a musty smell, as if no one had been occupying the room for some time, and the figure in the bed lay on dirty bedding. A radio was perched on the wooden table next to the bed, but it was silent. The only giveaways that the room was in use were the young man in the bed and the current newspaper strewn on the floor. The date was face-up: October 15, 1945.

“How are you doing today, Gerard?” the intruder, a plump, smiling nurse with long auburn hair swept in a tidy up-do asked, approaching the bed with a tray of food: toast, eggs, and orange juice. The occupant of the room did not reply, instead pulling the dinghy blankets further around him and turning away. Another man walked up to the doorway, looking into the room in concern and watching the nurse attempt to coax Gerard out of bed.

With no luck, the nurse retreated from the room after leaving the tray next to the radio, smiling apologetically at the man in the doorway as she bustled past.

“Gerard?” the man whispered, stepping hesitantly into the room and stopping just inside the doorway. Gerard and the man shared great similarity, although the man appeared to be about twenty years older. Both of them were gaunt and pale, and they both had the appearance of people who had been through quite a lot in a short period of time.

Gerard turned slightly, peering over his shoulder at this new intruder. As soon as he did, however, the room spun away from him and he was plunged into memory.

_Waves splashed up the sides of the uncovered boat, spraying cold, salty water over the shivering bodies of the soldiers inside. Their young faces looked out from under beat up metal helmets, dented and scratched. Gerard looked around at his fellow soldiers, eyes lingering on his younger brother Michael for a second longer than the rest. The medic, a somber fellow by the name of Ray, gathered his supplies closer and shifted in front of Gerard._

_The sergeant began barking orders about running straight onto the beach, and then the front of the boat dropped away and everything changed._

_Grey. Black. Brown._

_Smoke, bullets, water, sand, and a dull ache in the bones as limbs struggled to run through waist-deep, frigid water and around dead bodies floating in the surf._

_So many dull colors, sharp sounds, and shocking smells._

_But overwhelmingly, red._

_Red in the waves as they surged against legs, red in the sky as artillery shells exploded, red raining down as friends and enemies alike fell to the beach._

Welcome to France _, Gerard thought to himself once he had made it to the beach, followed closely by Michael. They threw themselves to the ground behind a giant iron landing barrier, guns pointed towards the unseen enemy further inland. The bunkers atop the cliffs exploded with gunfire, and a barrage of bullets sprayed the beach like a hose, a steady stream of death and devastation._

_Gerard’s ears began to ring as a large artillery shell exploded a few yards away. The sounds of the commotion were replaced with a steady ringing  for a few seconds, and Gerard winced. Looking back to see if Michael was still behind him, he was shocked to see his scrawny brother, face up on the sand. The younger boy stared down at his stomach in childlike wonder, hands stained red from the mess made of his intestines. Ray was bent over him, water dripping from his nose as he struggled to stop the blood with a few bandages. It was obvious that Ray could do nothing to save the boy, but Gerard just screamed at him to do something, anything to save the brother Gerard had fought so hard to leave at home._

Gerard’s entire body shuddered, throwing off the flashback and slipping back to reality. Gerard began to writhe and sob violently, curling in on himself and making a mess of the bed. The man, Gerard’s father, rushed into the room and untangled his son, muttering things to calm Gerard down.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, helplessly trying to comfort Gerard, who suddenly froze and looked at him with a stricken look on his face.

“Nothing is going to be okay! Mikey is gone, and it’s all my fault! He’s never coming home!” Gerard shouted, tears streaming down his face and an agonized look etched across his features.

“It’s not your fault, Gerard,” he replied softly, sitting on the edge of the bed and placing a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Mikey knew what he was getting into, and he was old enough, and there’s nothing you, or I, or even your mother could do. But you’re still here, and Alicia Joseph is still here, and she wants to tell you something. Do you mind getting up today? Because she’s downstairs and I think you’ll want to know what she has to say,” he concluded, standing up and smoothing Gerard’s hair away from his sweaty forehead.

Gerard frowned before nodding simply, sitting up slowly and looking around the room for his clothes. His father left quietly, shutting the door after him. Gerard stood and walked to the windows, pushing aside a curtain and peering out across the lawn. The day was almost offensively beautiful; the sun was shining agreeably and there was not a cloud to be seen in the clear fall sky. Gerard turned away from the window, pulling on a robe before venturing out of his room and downstairs.

The Way property was a rather large estate, and the family came from a long, prestigious line. Therefore, the grounds on which they lived were grand and sprawling, just outside the city. The house itself was huge, a mansion of sorts. Gerard wandered down the hall towards the main staircase; Alicia would most likely be waiting in the drawing room downstairs. Lo and behold, his late brother’s wife was pacing nervously when he walked into the room. When she saw him, she ran over immediately and enveloped Gerard in a hug, beginning to cry. Gerard struggled to contain his own tears as he attempted to adjust to the light. He had been shut in his room for far too long.

“Gerard, I…” Alicia began finally, once she had pulled away and somewhat composed herself. She was a beautiful, strong woman, and she wore a long pencil skirt and matching suit jacket. She and Mikey had always been such the unlikely couple, but they loved each other and somehow, it worked. “I’m so sorry about Mikey,” she finished, sniffling quietly and looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

“How are you?” Gerard asked, not sure how to take Alicia’s apology; after all, it wasn’t her fault Mikey was dead.

“I’m – well, that’s what I came to tell you about. You see,” she explained, twisting her hands together and turning rather pink, “I’m pregnant.”

Gerard stared at her for a second, unable to process her words. When they finally clicked, he had to sit down rather abruptly, and he stared at her in wonder.

“Pregnant…? You don’t mean… is it… you’re pregnant?” he asked, frowning slightly before his expression began to soften. “Mikey would be so terrified,” Gerard mused before he registered what he was saying. He covered his mouth in horror, glancing around the room nervously. “I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that,” he apologized, mentally hitting himself for being so insensitive. To his surprise, however, Mr. Way began to laugh, followed by Alicia herself.

“He would be terrified, wouldn’t he,” Gerard’s father chuckled, walking over behind Gerard and squeezing his shoulder. Gerard began to smile slightly, placing his hand over his father’s.

“I guess Mikey isn’t completely gone,” Alicia said, sitting down next to Gerard on the couch.

“I guess not.”


	2. Hometown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler

A young man walked quickly, his footsteps echoing in the silent streets. The sun had gone down an hour ago, and the streetlights illuminated wide circles of pavement. The boy seemed to fade in and out of existence as he walked in and out of the lights. His brown hair was shorn close to his head and his white t shirt and jeans lent themselves more to the last decade than this one – the sixties were much more long hair, flowing clothes, and softness. There was nothing soft about this boy, except maybe his brown eyes, which watched the cracks in the sidewalk as he hurried along.

All of a sudden, the boy froze. He was just to the edge of one of the radii of light, and he shuddered even though it was a warm summer night. A figure seemed to materialize out of the shadows and step towards him, tipping its head in a friendly manner and gesturing for the boy to continue walking. Instead, he looked frantically around and let out a soft whimper. More and more figures materialized out of the dark, and he squeezed his eyes shut before dropping into a squat and holding his head.

It began to rain softly, and the boy slowly raised his head, cautiously looking around. The figure next to him had disappeared, along with the ones all around. He stood shakily, his skin covered with goose bumps. The rain sizzled on the still-warm cement, hurrying the boy home. The raindrops masked the tear tracks on his cheeks. The silence of the night was ruined, and he could no longer escape his thoughts.

It was pouring by the time the boy got home, and he stood on the porch for a second, letting his clothes drip. He was chased inside by his fears when he looked out into the dark of the street and saw glowing eyes threatening to venture into the relative safety that his porch light supplied.

A tired woman sat on the couch just inside, her head drooping with glasses still perched on her nose. When the boy crashed through the door in a panic she was startled awake, and she stood to receive her son.

“Tyler, where have you been?” she asked, ignoring the droplets of water soaking into the carpet. Tyler could burn the house down for all she cared; the house was replaceable. Tyler did not answer. Instead he crumpled into his mother and sobbed, hiding his face in the crook of her neck and shaking all over. In the house the glowing eyes could not get him, but he knew they were out there; they never went away. The shadowy figure that had first confronted him under the streetlight was back, however, standing unobtrusively in the corner of the room and waiting patiently for Tyler.

They had much to talk about.

“They won’t go away, ma,” Tyler cried, voice muffled by the woman’s shoulder. She sighed, tears in her own eyes as she tried to console her only son. Tyler had been talking about these… people, or spirits, for months now, and it was all she could do to try and convince him they were not real. Tyler had an extremely active imagination when he was younger, so Mrs. Joseph never thought much of it until he was twelve and his imaginary friend still had not gone away. Tyler called him Blurryface, and at first he had been harmless. It was when Mrs. Joseph found Tyler in the backyard seeing how long he could stand putting his hand over a lighter that Mrs. Joseph began to be concerned, especially when Tyler told her, “Blurry told me it was a good idea.”

“Oh, baby,” she whispered, the front of her outfit soaked through. Tyler had been in the rain much longer than she originally thought; she needed to get him in dry clothes or he would get sick. Together they walked towards Tyler’s room, where Mrs. Joseph instructed him to change into his pajamas and then come back out to see her. Blurryface walked confidently into the room after them, settling into the chair by the desk and leaning back.

“Wonderful weather,” Blurry said conversationally, smiling out the dark window that was covered in water. Tyler shot him a glare before throwing the curtains shut and quickly stripping out of his sodden clothes. As he searched the room for his pajamas, Blurry played with the lighter from Tyler’s desk, passing the flame back and forth under his hand.

“I can deal with you, but I can’t deal with… with…  _ them _ ,” Tyler whisper-shouted at Blurry as he yanked pants on. Blurry just shrugged, his hazy outline solidifying in pleasure as Tyler spoke to him. The more Tyler began to accept that Blurry was real, the stronger he got. It was just the way of things.

“They don’t exist, you know,” Blurry reminded him, smiling softly as Tyler stiffened at his words. Tyler turned to face him, balefully staring at his oldest friend.

“Neither do you,” he shot back, only half believing his words. Blurry’s outline grew fuzzy again, however, and he sighed unhappily as Tyler collapsed into bed without going back out to see his mother. He was asleep almost as soon as he laid down, his wet clothes heaped on the floor and Blurryface forgotten in the corner.

“And yet, here I am.”


	3. Heaven Help Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard

Gerard sat in the music room by the window, contemplating the open grand piano in front of him but leaving the keys silent and melancholy. Before the war, he spent hours composing music and sharpening his skills; now, however, no notes came to him, no melodies floated through his mind to translate to the instrument. His soul was quiet; his music had stopped.

Frustrated, Gerard stood and walked to the radio, suffocated by the silence and disappointed in himself. Flipping it on, he sat in an overstuffed armchair, curling his feet under him. Gerard knew that his feet should not go on the furniture at the age of twenty one, but he figured the days of nannies chasing him around and monitoring his every move were long gone.

“… _ and now, the afternoon news report from Europe: cities all over France are being rebuilt after devastating bombings during the war…”  _ The radio cut into his thoughts, shaking him from his nostalgic reminiscence as he was brought painfully to reality. Hearing about the aftermath of the bombings in France sent him spiraling into a much more horrific flashback to the exhausting months after that fateful morning on Utah Beach where Mikey had died. 

_ It was pouring rain, the cold November day only becoming drearier with the steady northern downpour. American artillery exploded over the French city of Metz, one of Germany’s last strongholds in the country. The city already bore the signs of heavy combat; Allied bombings back in August had leveled a great deal of the larger buildings. _

_ Bodies littered the streets, great lumps that used to be brothers in arms face down in the mud, mixing their blood with the rain. In the gutters, an occasional finger or other dismembered chunk of a person floated swiftly with the small current, collecting against obstructions. Everything was mud and dirt and water and cold, and the only color that appeared against the grey landscape was red. _

_ Red, the blood of friends and enemies alike. Red, a tattered German flag with the offensive swastika that hung in ribbons and was spit on by each passing soldier. Red, the merciful sign of a field medic with far too much to do. Red, the blood on the medic’s hands as yet another young life was extinguished. _

_ What was left of Gerard’s battalion slowly made their way towards the Germans, shooting their way through the hostile streets and taking cover in the rubble of the once beautiful city. The further they went, the bleaker the battle seemed. Although they were gaining ground, their numbers were dropping steadily and soon the battalion was down to twelve men – boys, really. Only the sergeant was over the age of twenty five, and the youngest boy still alive was not yet eighteen; he had lied about his age to get into the war. _

_ As they inched closer and closer to enemy lines, German artillery fire became a hazard as well as the bullets the soldiers had already been dodging. Gerard, towards the back of the group, looked behind him after a shell exploded near the group; to his surprise, the two soldiers who had been following him were gone, their corpses ripped apart by shrapnel yards away. Gerard stared at them in mute horror for a few seconds before a bullet whizzed past his head and he rushed to catch up with the rest of the group. _

_ Finally, Gerard’s squad was met by another battalion of soldiers. They congregated in front of a large open area that surrounded the magnificent Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. Miraculously, the colossal building had gone untouched by most of the fighting and bombings and only the windows showed visible damage. _

_ The sergeant laid out a quick plan for skirting around the edge of the streets to avoid the open space, and then the soldiers were off, running low with their guns up and eyes darting all around. Gerard’s group was the first to make it to the front of the cathedral, breathing a sigh of relief for two seconds before an enormous artillery shell threw them all off their feet. Gerard landed hard on the cathedral steps, two of his teeth knocked out on impact. He spit them out with a mouthful of blood, looking around for the rest of the boys. The sergeant lay dead, both of his legs blown off. One of them was near Gerard, and he scrambled away from it in disgust. _

_ All of a sudden, the rumble of airplanes filled the sky and the soldiers cheered, eyes turned upwards to search the dripping clouds for a sight at salvation. Indeed, bombs began to rain down to the north, where the Germans had been based. The artillery fire began to slow, and what was left of the soldiers continued on. _

Gerard flinched once the flashback finished, pulling the knitted blanket from the back of the chair so it covered him. It was warm inside the house, but the memory of the frigid rain brought a chill to Gerard’s bones that he struggled to shake.


	4. Ode To Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler

Tyler woke up early the next morning after a fitful night’s sleep. Blurry was nowhere to be seen, and when he walked down the hall to the living room Mrs. Joseph was not on the couch for the first time in weeks. Thinking back, Tyler realized that this had been the first time he had slept all night in weeks; hence the correlation. When Tyler couldn’t sleep, he liked to wander, which worried his mother to no end.

Sitting at the counter of the kitchen, Tyler turned on a small lamp and got out a bowl for cereal. It took him an hour to pour cereal into the bowl; instead, he sat staring at the bottom of the dish until the clock made a noise and he was startled out of his revelry. It took another hour after he had poured his cereal to pour milk over it, but this time he kept trying to make himself pour the damn stuff. Tyler’s mind kept stopping him; this would be the first time he had eaten in almost a week. By the time the bowl was empty, spoon discarded and just a trace of milk left, Tyler felt mildly sick. He looked at the clock and was surprised to see that it took him another two hours just to shovel all of the cereal in his mouth, and he had to stop himself from throwing up.

Trying to avoid the feeling in the back of his throat, Tyler searched the house for Blurryface. Oddly enough, the constant voice in his head was gone, and he was left alone to his thoughts.

Mrs. Joseph slept soundly until after noon, leaving Tyler to sit at the counter once again with a piece of paper in front of him. When Tyler was a child, he would write all sorts of little poems and stories for his mother, but when Blurryface began to have more sway over the impressionable boy, the writing turned dark before it stopped altogether. Now, however, Tyler remembered his dreams and shuddered as the words to express the way his mind spoke came to him.

By the time Mrs. Joseph woke up and ran to work, kissing her son quickly after mumbling something about being very late, Tyler had filled the page with words. None of them made sense together, and there was nothing to string the different thoughts together. By the time Tyler looked up from his filled page, it was almost dark again and shadows playing against the window in the kitchen began to grow violent, grinning maniacally at Tyler through the glass and baring their teeth.

One of the shadows drew up the strength to bang once on the window (a tree branch blowing in the wind), sending Tyler sprawling away from the kitchen, splitting his lip in the process as he smacked into the side of the wall. Head spinning, Tyler sat at the dining room table, his paper fisted in one hand and a pen grasped tightly in the other. Looking at the pen in disgust, Tyler tossed it away from him. He wanted to do the same with the paper, but the words ‘kitchen sink’ looked up at him and he sighed, absentmindedly wiping his face with the back of his hand and smearing the blood from his lip across his chin.

 As soon as Tyler heard his mother’s key in the front door, he was staggering to his bedroom and collapsing on the bed. In a minute, his door creaked open and Mrs. Joseph stuck her head in the room to see if Tyler was home. Tyler pretended to be asleep and she breathed a sigh of relief before closing the door and going to her own room. Tyler sat up, not even having to look to the seat by his desk to know that Blurryface was back.

“I’m sorry I said you weren’t real,” Tyler told him, the paper still crinkled into a ball in his hand. Blurry shrugged.

“Third time in a month. What’s gotten into you? That’s just as many times as you wouldn’t forgive me for reminding you of the truth,” Blurry commented, folding his arms. His facial features were almost visible, and a fuzzy eyebrow rose for a few seconds. “Denial doesn’t help anyone.”

“I feel like I’m selling myself to stay sane. Like my mind is for sale just so I can hold on to what keeps me human. Metaphorically, I’m a whore,” Tyler mused, flopping back down on his bed. He did not even try to argue with Blurryface; Blurry always won.

“And… there’s denial number four,” Blurry said snidely, looking pointedly at Tyler, who blushed and shot a glare at his companion.

“They make the voices stop,” he defended, his cheeks a pale shade of pink.

“Do you hear them now?”

“No. But I heard them last night; they woke me up. Who are they? They tell me I’m gone,” Tyler asked, tucking his paper under his pillow protectively. Blurry eyed it but said nothing, instead thinking for a second before coming up with an answer for Tyler’s question.

“I don’t know. They don’t really talk to me. They only want you. They’re… demons, or something. Much more dangerous than me,” Blurryface said, deflecting the question away from himself. Blurry was just another voice, but he had been there the longest and therefore was the most present and dominant. Tyler had been listening to more and more of his inner demons lately, however, and his mind was a bit crowded. Blurry wanted it to go back to when it was just him and Tyler, and he was the only one Tyler listened to.

After all, what good is seeing the person whose thoughts you haunt in pain, unless you are inflicting it?

Tyler, oblivious to Blurry’s thoughts, replied, “I don’t know what they want from me. I’m insignificant; I don’t threaten any plans, I don’t do anything. What do they want? I can’t even sleep,” he rambled, more to himself than to Blurry. Turning over in bed so that his back was facing Blurryface, Tyler squeezed his eyes shut for a second before reopening them.

“The dark’s not taking prisoners tonight,” Blurryface said, suddenly accompanied by more figures like him; these figures, however, were not quite as defined, and they hovered around him jealously. Tyler, hearing the quiet phrase, snapped his eyes shut in terror and did not open them until the light of dawn came through his window and drove away the shadows again.


	5. Mama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard

_Children in nightclothes wandered what used to be streets, dusty stuffed animals in hand and blood on faces and feet as they screamed for their parents._

_German soldiers lay on the sides of roads, not quite dead but not granted the dignity or mercy of a quick death; instead, they bled out, crying for mercy and an end to the pain until they could not speak anymore._

_Brothers in arms dropped like flies, begging for mothers, wives, and morphine._

_Bombs dropped with no discretion; one fell on a German base, another from the same plane incinerated an orphanage, a hospital, a church. Broken bricks and charred wood mixed, and buildings left and right were reduced to rubble._

Scenes like these plagued Gerard’s dreams, making for very fitful sleep and dark bags that formed under the young man’s eyes. It was when these horrific memories woke him in the middle of the night that Gerard wished with all his heart that his mother was still alive; she had died from pneumonia right after the war, leaving the diminished Way family to grieve for both Mrs. Way and Mikey when Gerard arrived home to his father.

On one such sleepless night, Gerard wandered into the drawing room and over to his mother’s desk. In it he was surprised to find a letter he had written to her a few weeks before Mikey had died, right after they had first seen combat and Gerard had fully gotten a grasp on what war really meant. It was nothing like home; the enemy was not the boys from next door, and when someone got hit, it meant that they were most likely going to die, not just fall down and then get back up laughing when called back in for supper.

_Dearest mother,_

_I am doing alright, and so is Mikey, but this war is much harder than I had expected and I am coming to terms with a few things._

_Mama, we all go to hell._

_There’s no way we can’t; there’s so much death and fighting and hatred that there’s no way that a single one of us is making it to heaven when we die._

_And mama, we’re all going to die._

Gerard put the letter down for a second, the painful memories of his first battle rushing back to him as he struggled to read the pessimistic words. The envelope had not been opened before Gerard found it; when it had arrived, delayed and too late, his mother had already died.

Perhaps it was just as well.


	6. Clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler

Tyler, Blurryface had come to know, had many faces. There was the one he showed his mother, the I’m doing fine, don’t worry about me face. There was the one he showed on the street, the who are you and what’s it to you face. There was the one he wore when he was all alone, the am I truly alone or are the demons going to find me face. There was the one he showed when he came to the club trying to block out all the voices, the I’m scared of who I’ve become but this is all I have left face. There were more, but they were more subtle and similar to each other, and Blurry lost count of all of the different ones he had seen.

Blurryface did not really care which face Tyler wore; he just knew how to identify them and then stay hidden or take his chances visible to Tyler.

Tonight, Tyler had on his whore face - as Blurry liked to call it. Tyler was not quite old enough to drink, but the clubs were eighteen and up, so Tyler went anyway and snagged drinks where he could. The club part of the night was usually the shortest, sweetest, most enjoyable time. The music shoved the voices straight out of his head, leaving Blurryface to hover irritably by the door. The other demons floated off to torture some other soul, but Blurry stuck around. For some reason, he was more attached to Tyler than to anyone else. Maybe because he had been in his head for so long.

Tyler came tumbling out the door a little over an hour later, an inebriated person kissing him and tugging him along towards a car. Blurry sighed, following the couple as they walked towards a car and drove towards an apartment complex near the club.

Blurry waited as they giggled, stumbling up the stairs to a front door and taking a few minutes to unlock the door.

Blurry sat on the steps, blocking out the sounds of the night and watching cars pass on the street.

Blurry waited until just past midnight, when Tyler snuck out of the apartment and joined him on the stairs.

“Are you ready to go home now?” Blurry asked sarcastically, not even bothering to look up at Tyler. His voice said enough. Tyler was now wearing his purest face, the one that said I wish I was six years old and everything was simple and happy and I had never grown up. Tyler just nodded, and together they walked across town and quietly let themselves back into Tyler’s house.

Blurryface guessed he understood Tyler’s behavior. He did always have daddy issues; kids who grow up without fathers tend to. Maybe that’s why Blurryface stuck around. He pretended like he had a choice, but Tyler’s frame of mind did not allow him to leave.

Blurryface did not look so blurry when Tyler fell into bed, not even bothering to shower the scent of the person of the night off of his skin.

“Goodnight, Blurryface,” he said quietly. Blurryface sat in the chair by the desk, flipping open the lighter experimentally and hovering his hand over the flame. Tyler’s face now, he knew, was the one that said I’ve stopped trying to pretend I’m not insane. For some reason, that made the game less enticing.

“Goodnight, Tyler.”


	7. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard

After the first night without dreams since he returned home from Europe, Gerard woke up refreshed and finally willing to venture outside the Way household. He headed downstairs early, getting breakfast before he wrote a quick note letting his father know where he would be.

The streets were filled with people, bustling around in their winter clothes, shopping bags and purses weighing down arms. Gerard pulled his own scarf closer around his neck and strolled, watching the shoppers and stopping from time to time to just take in the scene. It was so strange to be surrounded by such mundane activity, such normalcy. It almost made him feel human again.

Gerard did not remember putting on his officer cap until a young mother approached him with her infant son and thanked him for his service. Her husband, she explained, was in the war as well, although he did not make it home. She smiled kindly at him, wished him a blessed day, and took her leave. He smiled until she had turned her back and then had to find a place to sit and breathe deeply for a while.

The day went by quickly, the nights getting longer as the Winter Solstice grew near. Gerard’s fingers began to go numb after a long time out in the snow, and he was forced into a small bar by the biting wind. Heading straight for the counter, Gerard ordered bourbon and sat on a stool, waiting for his drink.

“Gerard!” A loud voice sounded through the bar, and Gerard turned to see his childhood friend Tommy strolling up to the bar. He, too, was wearing his Army hat, although Gerard suspected he wore it for the attention rather than for the cold.

They shared a round of drinks, reminiscing about life before the war, and Gerard almost forgot about how horrid the fighting had been. They toasted each other and laughed, just like the old days.

Gerard cried when he got home.


	8. Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler

Tyler did not sleep. Perks of insomnia, he guessed, but between the feeling of another person on his skin and the subtle realization that he was truly imbalanced and mildly insane, his mind did not quiet. Come three in the morning, Tyler was sitting on the floor of his bathroom, blood beading on his thigh where he had traced a thin line with a razor. Disgusted with himself, he threw the blade somewhere on the floor and stumbled back to his bedroom, ignoring Blurryface, who was still in the same position he had been in when they came in. Blurry just followed Tyler with his eyes, not bothering to say anything; when Tyler was in a masochistic mood, he was especially irritable and argumentative.

By the time Tyler had calmed down enough to lie back in bed and rest for a while, the sun was beginning to rise and it was no use trying to get any sleep. Mrs. Joseph had to leave for work early, not bothering to check on her son; she had walked by the door, and hearing Tyler humming to himself was confirmation enough that he was still home and alive.

Blurryface, sensing how fragile Tyler was, all alone with a new scar, said, “It’s okay, just try again. Tonight you can sleep.” He tried to make Tyler feel better, but Tyler just looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.

“Just try again? To what? Make it through the night without trying to destroy myself? God, I’m so fucking stupid!” he screamed, standing up abruptly and throwing his pillow against the wall. Blurryface flinched, his outline flickering nervously. It was hard to gauge how much Tyler believed in him when he was in a mood like this. “How could I do this to Mom? But… how can I stay here much longer? I’m just going to end up dying,” Tyler mused, half talking to Blurryface, half to himself. Arguably, they were one and the same.

“Take pride in what is sure to die,” Blurry told him helpfully. Tyler ignored him. Blurry faded a little bit, frowning and rubbing his eyes with his hazy hands.

“I don’t want the night to come again. I’m afraid,” Tyler confessed. Blurryface grew stronger.

“I hope I’m not my only friend,” Tyler lamented, a tear running down his face. Blurry almost disappeared, desperately standing. He was suddenly nervous.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Blurryface answered, trying to mask the thinly veiled panic in his voice. Tyler looked at him, a tired stare that pierced through Blurryface like a knife.

“Don’t remind me.”


	9. The Light Behind Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard

Alicia had her baby that December, a beautiful brown haired boy. She named him Tyler, after her father, and gave him Mikey’s middle name, Robert. Deciding to keep her own name for the both of them, his full name was Tyler Robert Joseph, and he was a strong, healthy little guy.

When Alicia had gone into labor, she had been visiting with Gerard and his father, almost scaring the death out of Gerard when she began to wail. He nearly had another flashback, but his father had begun to recognize the signs and how to stop the painful memories. He had grabbed his son, explained quickly (and loudly) what was happening, and then sent Gerard down to fetch the car. They raced to the hospital where the poor woman was in labor over the night, and Tyler was born that next morning.

Gerard especially was fascinated by the new addition to the family. He visited Alicia in the hospital, holding the new baby in his arms. _Tyler_. The last living shred of Mikey Gerard had left. It seemed so scary, so strange, that life began so fragilely for someone whose father had died so violently. Mikey was just barely old enough to go to war, let alone father a child. Gerard hoped (and trusted) that Alicia was up to the task, although he vowed to help out as best he could, if not for Alicia and Tyler, then for Mikey.

Between visiting his new nephew and sister-in-law in the hospital and going home to get some semblance of sleep, Gerard visited Mikey and the other fallen soldiers of the town in the little cemetery connected to the Catholic Church. Gerard was shocked to find that, pacing the solemn rows of gravestones, most of his friends had met tragic ends in the war. The astonishing amount of names left him reeling, asking himself how he had survived when so many had perished.

When Gerard went home that night, he stopped in Mikey’s room for a while. Sitting on his brother’s bed, Gerard cried for what seemed to be the thousandth time that month, surrounded by familiarity. Going into the war, Gerard had promised that the light behind Mikey’s eyes would not be distinguished; he had promised to keep Mikey alive no matter what the cost. The crushing feeling of knowing he had failed almost suffocated him, but the news of Alicia’s child helped him breathe.

If Gerard could help it, Tyler’s warm brown eyes would never lose their light. He vowed not to fail this time around.


	10. Goner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler

Tyler escaped the house as soon as it got light enough outside for most of the shadows to be slivers of memories of the night. The dark purple bags under his tired eyes looked like bruises, and his short hair stuck up all over his head at odd angles. Blurryface was nowhere to be seen, but Tyler did not mind.

The day was slightly chilly, so Tyler tucked his hands deep into his pockets and pinned his leather jacket to his sides with his elbows tightly. Absentmindedly watching his feet, they led him down the street and around a few blocks before he meandered up to the local cemetery and stopped at the tall wrought-iron gate.

The small cemetery had been there for decades, its fences and gates rusted from the years and the grave stones cracked and crumbling in some areas. The tombstones of soldiers who had died in the second World War were still mostly intact, and it was to this area of the cemetery that Tyler wandered.

Somehow, Tyler knew to stop in front of one of the gray slabs of stone. The headstone read Michael Robert Way: Tyler’s father he had never known. All of a sudden, Blurryface appeared, confused and barely a slip of a shadow. His immaterial self scared him, but Blurry knew better than to speak.

Tyler began to speak, words tumbling from his lips like blood dripping from a fresh cut: steadily seeping out into the world to color it a vivid red. Tears began to fall from Tyler’s eyes, but he did nothing to stop them as he spoke to the father he had never known. Somehow, Tyler knew that Michael Robert Way was listening, and that his ghost was near. Instead of repulsing and scaring Tyler, the thought comforted his racing heart and his heavy breathing slowed. Looking down at the ground, Tyler sighed quietly.

His father was dead and gone, underneath the earth to rest eternally.

And Tyler was alive and gone, inside-out as his thoughts plagued him like the ghosts of his mind.

With this thought came the startling realization that Blurryface was one such ghost of his mind.

Blurryface was not real. Blurryface was not real.

_Blurryface was not real._

And when Tyler looked up, Blurryface was gone. In his place was a girl, tears running down her face and a white rose in her hand.

“Did your dad die in the war too?” she asked softly, nose pink in the cold.

Tyler nodded.

“Do you want to put this rose down between them? My dad is right here,” she said, gesturing to the plot next to Michael Robert Way.

Tyler nodded.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she said, more to herself than to him.

Tyler nodded again, and then finally opened his mouth.

“I’m Tyler.”

“I’m Lauren.”

Together they walked out of the cemetery, crying silently. Tyler looked back once more, fully expecting to see shadows following him. Instead, the only thing he noticed was the white rose, lying peacefully in the grass.


	11. Young Volcanoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Two: The Delinquents
> 
> Pete

“Run! Cops!” A small pack of teenagers scattered, dropping whatever they had in their hands and sprinting for a fence at the end of the alleyway they had been tagging, their cans left discarded on the ground. The five of them vaulted over the chain link fence; the last one over was the one who had given the signal, a short, black haired boy wearing far too much eyeliner and an edgy leather jacket.

Once the group had deemed that they were out of danger, they stopped running and caught their breath, hands on knees as they puffed out clouds of air into the cold night. Once the black haired boy could breathe again, he began to laugh, and he was quickly joined by his friends.

“Nice signal, Pete!” one of them crowed, holding his stomach as he laughed and slapped Pete, the one who had laughed first, on the back. “We asked for a subtle sign and all you came up with was ‘Run.’”

“I choked!” Pete defended, grinning at his friends. “I saw the car and couldn’t think of anything to say but that. Next time you take watch, Andy, see how stressful it is.”

“Whatever,” Andy, the ginger boy who had teased Pete, replied. “See you losers at school,” he said over his shoulder as he walked off. One by one the group dispersed, leaving Pete to walk home alone. The night was frigid; the winter of 1988 broke records as being the coldest season yet, and Pete could tell as he hurried back to his house. It was far later than he had expected, sometime around midnight when he finally made it back to his street.

Of course, when he arrived to see that the cute girl next door was still up and sitting on the sill of her bedroom window, Pete had an extra minute to get her attention and then motion for her to come down, winking at her. She rolled her eyes in disgust, ignoring him and closing her curtains. Pete just chuckled to himself, blew a sarcastic kiss up to her, and then clambered up the trellis to his own bedroom window. Tiptoeing to his door, he peeked out into the hallway to see if his parents were still up; their light was off, and the house was quiet. Pete grinned in triumph, but his smile faltered when his gaze landed on the door across from his, and he retreated back into his room and went to bed.

After all, he had school tomorrow and would not dream of staying up late on a school night.


	12. But It's Better If You Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon

Brendon Boyd Urie (whose real name was Brendon Michael Joseph) spent his twenty first birthday wasted in a strip club in Las Vegas, trying to forget about his last girlfriend. Granted, Brendon was relatively innocent for growing up in the city of sin, and he had never actually gotten drunk before, so he should never have been anywhere near a strip club. An older man sat two seats away, sipping a very fancy drink and smirking at Brendon when his attention was not on the stage, and Brendon found himself getting far more uncomfortable than he had expected.

Of course, the fact that this was a gay strip club that he had accidentally stumbled upon was a whole other can of worms. Or bag of dicks. Or whatever. 

This discomfort had Brendon drinking much more than he had originally intended, so when a rather large man-woman (Brendon was not entirely sure) came up and asked for his name, he gave it readily and was not even surprised or sober enough to push him/her off his lap when they descended and straddled him rather intimately.

In fact, he may have gotten way too into the whole ordeal.

It may have been the drinks talking, or maybe his suddenly interested hormones, but Brendon was sweating by the time the dance song on the club’s PA had finished and his new ‘friend’ began to dismount his lap and move away. Brendon reached out, hand full of twenty dollar bills and face filled with some sort of desperate lust, and the stripper came back, shoving the money who-knows-where and taking off three layers of clothing that he (as it turned out) had barely been wearing in the first place.

And thus started the general downward spiral of Brendon Boyd Urie, in a questionable club in downtown Vegas during the summer of 1995.


	13. Thnks Fr Th Mmrs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete

Pete really hated school. Maybe it was because he was trying very hard to be edgy, and maybe it felt much cooler for him to ditch class and hide behind the school smoking cigarettes instead, but at any rate, school was the last place Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third wanted to waste his time.

And he hated that his parents had named him that. Part of the dumb name had been his Uncle Frank’s idea, who acted as his dad because his real dad had been too much of a loser to stick around. Pete’s mom refused to drop the asshole’s last name, so Pete was stuck with the ostentatious extra syllables, and he hated all of them.

Pete Way did not sound spectacular either, though, so he guessed he was out of luck on that front.

He was also out of luck on the skipping class and smoking bit as well, because all of a sudden there was a teacher calling his name and he was hurrying to stomp on his cigarette, trying to act like he was out by the dumpsters for no reason other than the scenery. Of course, the teacher was not stupid, and he was sent straight to the principal’s office to try and talk himself out of trouble.

Of course, it did not work and Frank was called to pick him up from school for his suspension. Pete sat in the front office, glaring at the secretary and scuffing his shoes on the white linoleum floor vindictively until his uncle arrived, grimacing apologetically at the lady at the front desk. He did not speak a word to Pete, just signed him out and then walked to the car in silence. When Pete finally got in, Frank was holding his hand out. Pete stared at him in confusion until Frank sighed and looked over.

“Cigarettes. Now. I know you have more of them.” Pete groaned slightly and pulled a half-full pack out of his backpack, reluctantly handing them over. Frank stuck them in his pocket and then started the car. “Your mother is going to be so disappointed in you,” Frank told Pete as he drove home. Pete stared out the window, restlessly wishing they were home already so Pete could sneak out of his window and hang out with his friends.

“I know,” Pete replied dejectedly, less sorry that he had been breaking about five school rules and more upset that he had gotten caught. Pete never got caught; he guessed he was starting to slip.

“Well, I don’t know how mad your mother is going to be, but I do know that you’re grounded for the rest of the week. This is your third time getting suspended this year, Pete, and if you get caught with cigarettes again, or you’re suspended again, there are going to be serious repercussions. I know it’s been hard ever since Dallon died, but--” Pete sat rigidly upright at the mention of the name, and he whipped his head to glare at his uncle.

“How can you possibly know how hard it’s been? How can you possibly know?” Pete hated the fact that his eyes had begun to well up at the mention of his name, and he swiped at them furiously.

“Pete, he was my nephew! I miss him just as much--”

“No! Don’t even say that! He was my fucking brother, and he’s gone!” Pete shouted, alarming Frank who stepped on the brakes. Luckily they were on a residential street. The slight pause gave Pete just enough time to throw the door open to his uncle’s Firebird and take off running. Frank yelled out after him a few times, but Pete ignored him, hopped a few fences, and made his way towards the abandoned warehouse that he and his friends met at usually. Frank let him go with a frustrated sigh of resignation; knowing Pete, he would be in his bed the next morning, reeking of cigarette smoke and underage sex. There was nothing he could do about it.

When Pete got to the warehouse, none of his friends had arrived yet. It was still early, Pete realized, and they were all still in school. Pete pulled the extra packet of cigarettes he kept in his pocket out, lighting one and climbing up to the roof to escape his thoughts. The mention of Dallon had him feeling especially morose, and by the time the other kids started to arrive he had finished the pack and was looking for either a fist fight or a quick fuck.

He got both.


	14. Vegas Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon

Brendon was already tipsy, and it was just past six in the evening. Of course, for a Friday night it was remarkable that he was not high on some drug or another; Brendon jumped from vice to vice with very little discretion. If it made him feel good, he liked it.

This was a very sudden change of behavior for Brendon; just last month, before the fated trip to the cabaret, he was a studious student who spent his time either in the library or back at his small house with his mother and occasionally his father. His father was in and out of the house from time to time, something Brendon never understood until he found out that the man suffered with hallucinations and severe depression. This realization, Brendon may have rationalized if he was not so inebriated, may have been the beginning of the problems he had had, first with his relationship with his girlfriend, and then with his relationship with drugs and alcohol.

But Brendon was far too gone to think about that.

He was currently shirtless, standing on a coffee table with another guy, and they were grinding like their lives depended on it. The party was in a big, sprawling one-story house, and each room was packed with people. In the corner of the room Brendon was in, a shifty guy passed out little packets of powder and pills; usually no one liked the dealer, but for these sorts of parties, he was all but essential. There was loud dance music on, and the large open part of the room was a mass of writhing bodies, moving to the beat; it was hard to tell where one began and the next ended.

A tall, scantily clad girl stepped up behind Brendon and wrapped a lithe arm around his chest, snaking it down his torso. Brendon grinned, turning to this new addition, and kissed her sloppily. She pushed a pill in his mouth and then whispered something to him, gesturing to another girl who winked at him from her place by the stairs.

They did not come back from the back room for a while.

The next morning, Brendon woke up completely naked, face down on some carpet next to a couch where a couple was having lazy morning sex. Brendon watched, interested for a while, but then his headache kicked him in the skull and he stumbled into the kitchen to look for some painkillers and water. Once his head had stopped throbbing quite so violently, he went around the house in an attempt to locate his clothes. Luckily they were all relatively near each other, and he pulled on his matching blue slacks and blazer quickly. His shoes were another story, but he finally found them under the sink in the small bathroom and was on his way home.

Now that he was sober enough to think about his actions, Brendon cringed slightly. Not because he regretted his actions, although he knew he would eventually. Just that his mother had asked him to be home for the weekend, just this once, and here he was.

He was not even friends with the people he had been partying with. It was just a part of the elaborate game; the lies, the affectation, the pretending to have fun. Maybe the sex was real, and maybe the drugs were a bit too real, but everything else was fake. Brendon found a pill in his pocket and swallowed it, the thoughts in his head replaced with a soaring sensation.

He came to live for that sensation.


	15. Coffee's For Closers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete

Something had changed, something Pete wanted to change and stay the same all at once. He hated it when girls followed him around, trying to get in his pants, but now that they shied away from him, he grew bitter. It was because he was not the player he had been; something about that day that he had gotten suspended changed something. Maybe because Pete had not heard the name of his brother since the fateful night when the older boy had died.

Pete had been ten; it had been six years, he realized. Pete guessed drugs, alcohol, and meaningless sex did not exactly help him get past his grief. Right before he had died, Dallon had promised Pete a road trip to the coast. He had also promised Pete that they would always stick together.

Pete decided he would never believe in anything again.

Instead of his usual pastimes, Pete found himself scrounging together the money he was going to use to get a legal person to buy him cigarettes, instead buying a concert ticket to see the next band in town. When he got to the concert, cold, alone, and hoping to mosh until he broke something, he did not even know who he had paid to see. He did not pay attention when they introduced themselves; instead, Pete waited to the side of the crowd and watched the diehard fans fight for front row spots standing on the barrier.

The bands that played were good, Pete had to admit. The circle pits grew larger, faster, and more violent, and someone’s elbow collided with his nose. Hot, sticky blood flowed from the wound, but Pete kept going until he wavered, lightheaded. A nicer mosher stopped him, getting together enough people to pick him up and crowd surf him to the front where he could go around to the back and get medical attention.

Pete passed out on his way up; he had not eaten in days. He woke up two minutes later, an employee hovering around him nervously with napkins, checking his pulse. He waved her off and stumbled out of the venue, headed home. Pete made it as far as his porch, and then he collapsed.

His mother found him there the next morning, lips blue from the cold and dried blood on his face.


	16. Northern Downpour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon

Sobriety was downright, well, sobering, as Brendon came to found out. Left to his own thoughts for once instead of the vivid drug-induced hallucinations he was used to, Brendon was forced to deal with what he had originally meant to forget: her.

The way her long, dark brown hair tickled his nose when he slept next to her, the way her eyes sparkled when she laughed at the stupid things he said, the way she would walk around her house in nothing but one of his old shirts when he spent the night, teasing him with her long, tan legs as she swam in his too-big clothes.

By the time Brendon got close to his house, the sky was already beginning to lighten, streaks of red, purple, and orange reaching into the sky and illuminating the clouds. The moon was full and still visible even though all of the stars had disappeared. Brendon wished futilely that the world could pause and stay like it was forever, before the sun came up fully and exposed everything he and the others who wore counterfeit smiles and forged happiness and enjoyment had done the night before.

She had said no.

Of course, she said no to plenty of things, but Brendon had never expected such a harsh, unhappy word to pass her lips when he was down on one knee in front of her with a little box and a diamond that was certainly not cheap. Now whenever he saw the gem, he was reminded of broken glass, like the mirror he had smashed when he got home that day. His knuckles had little scars all across them from that run-in.

Brendon could not afford another day of sadness and depression, so he took a detour back towards a notorious party house. It was still morning, but he knew that something would be going on and he would not have to be around for the moon to fall down and the sun to take over.

Brendon had never really liked the sun anyway.


	17. Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete

Pete woke up two days later in a hospital bed with an IV attached to his arm. Frank was asleep in the armchair by the window but his mother was awake, and she rushed over to hug him when he opened his eyes and began to stir. Pete smiled weakly up at her, guilt washing over him as he noticed how pale and thin she looked. It had been hard on all of them when Dallon died, but Pete finally felt bad for putting her – and his little sister Holly – through his horrible way of dealing with the pain.

It was Thursday when Pete was accepted into the hospital, and he was discharged later that Saturday. When he got home he immediately wanted to go out, tired of lying in a bed in the cold hospital for so long, but Frank gave him the longest look that said _After all you’ve put them through?_ Frank looked at his mother and ten year old sister, and his resolve crumbled.

Holly was Pete’s age when Dallon died.

Pete began to cry openly now, the weight of the past six years crushing him. He had been going through the motions of coming to terms with the loss of his big brother in all of the wrong ways, and now he saw that not only was he hurting himself, but his whole family as well. Pete had been coasting on potential instead of learning to live with his grief, and it had him going straight for a wall at a hundred miles an hour.

Holly walked over to her big brother, wrapping her arms tentatively around his skinny frame and hugging him gently. Pete was caught off guard by this sudden display of affection, but while it took him a while, he finally hugged her back.

Pete had been so caught up in the end of his brother’s life that he forgot how to live.


	18. Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon

Brendon awoke, wearing only a pair of boxers and one sock, and looked around. Surveying the faces of the other partygoers who had not been conscious enough to go home, Brendon did not recognize anyone. As he stumbled around, trying to find his clothes, the night rushed back to him in a wave of brightly colored memories.

 _He was wearing a juvenile party hat and was carrying a rather expensive-looking cane. Standing in front of a full room of people, he threw open his arms with a laugh and they all cheered. ‘_ Keg King!’, _they shouted. Brendon bowed a few times, losing his balance and falling into three very attractive girls, who laid him down on the floor and began to kiss and touch him everywhere._

Brendon found his other sock by the empty liquor cabinet, so he sat down heavily at the table to put it on. Looking at the table, Brendon was hit by another memory as he noticed a discarded latex glove, inside out and mildly damp.

_He was completely naked, somewhat restrained on the tabletop as a pack of drunk pre-meds circled around. They were all wearing gloves, and Brendon heard the cap pop open on a bottle of something before a cold finger was inserted –_

Brendon jumped up from the table, moving away from the glove like it was cursed. Moving to the living room, Brendon noticed his undershirt next to an empty box of Camel cigarettes and an empty bag that once held cocaine.

_He was laughing next to a guy on the couch who was chain smoking Camels and laughing maniacally as the smoke alarm went off. A desperate girl kneeled in front of what Brendon guessed was a dealer across from them, eagerly giving him a blowjob. She was rewarded with a small baggie of cocaine that she quickly dumped onto the coffee table in front of Brendon and then snorted._

Wandering towards the backyard, Brendon stepped over the girl from his memory, who was no longer wearing any clothes and was face down in a pool of vomit. He gently sat her up, pulling her to a couch in the next room before continuing on his way. In the backyard, one of the soberer party-goers was hosing down his friend, who was wrapped in a bed sheet on a floating chair in the pool.

_He was tripping, a long white dress hindering his steps. A group of people was laughing, yelling tips for him that he could not hear. A tall guy in a chiffon skirt beckoned for him to come closer, and then made a bet that Brendon eagerly took. Ten minutes later, he had lost and was now wearing a very tall pair of high heels. Ridiculously enough, they matched what was left of his outfit, and he could walk fairly well in them for being inebriated and nearly out of his mind. Sauntering over to the guy in the skirt, Brendon grabbed him by his tie and kissed him full on the mouth._

“Are any of these clothes yours?” Brendon turned to see who had interrupted his memory, coming face to face with a very pretty girl who seemed to be respectable – meaning she did not appear to have attended the party. Brendon looked to the pile of garments in her hands, spotting his clothes, and he smiled gratefully.

“Yeah, they are,” he replied, walking over with a blush creeping from his cheeks down to his neck. He threw them on quickly and then smiled at her, humiliated. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t apologize to me. I used to party all the time; I know how it goes. You don’t strike me as someone who would want to get stuck in this life though,” she told him. She was very pretty, Brendon noticed, with long brown hair – just like _her_.

“No,” Brendon agreed, shaking his head slightly and following her back towards the house. “I need to get out of it, actually. I just had to… I had to forget someone, but I don’t think this is working,” he confessed, gesturing to the wrecked property around him and then scratching the back of his neck awkwardly; he sighed as he realized he had confetti stuck to him. She walked around behind him and helped him pick off a few of the pieces, and then stopped at a table and wrote down her number on a paper napkin.

“I’ll help you forget in a healthier way,” she told him, handing the napkin to him and then walking away with a smile.

The napkin told him her name was Sarah.


	19. Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete

“I’m still not comfortable with this. I’m only doing it for my mom,” Pete told the patient doctor, who was sitting across from him with a notepad in a dimly lit office filled with toys and calming games and puzzles. Pete felt mildly frustrated; he knew he had things to talk out with a therapist – he was coming apart at the seams – but he was mildly bitter that he had been stuck with a child psychiatrist. The office felt condescending and juvenile.

“Well, that’s a start. Recognizing the motivation behind your actions is a step towards healing. It seems a motivation is to please your mother, and you don’t want to disappoint her. Does that sound right?” Pete rolled his eyes at the superfluous language but nodded slightly.

“Now I do. I didn’t used to,” he confessed begrudgingly.

“And what did you used to do?” Pete scoffed, shaking his head.

“What didn’t I do?”

“Enlighten me.”

Instead, Pete changed the subject, speaking words he never thought he would say.

“He died on a Sunday. It was raining and cold, and he had been having problems with coordination and balance for a while. That day, he slept in really late and then fell out of bed when he was trying to get up. He split the side of his head open on the table next to his bed really bad, and then had me help him put butterfly bandages on it. There was so much blood.

“He went out that night. It was right before Christmas, and he said something about going Christmas shopping and left on foot. I wanted to spy on him, so I followed. He was weaving back and forth on the sidewalk, and he kept holding his head in his hands. I was getting nervous, but I was supposed to be home, so I didn’t say anything.

“He was trying to cross the street, and a car didn’t stop. He was wearing all black like he always did, and he hit the ground so hard that I heard the impact from a block away. When I ran up there was a crowd of people around him, and I had to fight through them. He was writhing on the ground, babbling words I didn’t understand, and the butterfly bandages had come off. He got up and started shouting at the people on the street; when he looked at me it was like he didn’t even recognize my face. Police came.

“They put him in a police car and took him to the hospital. They had to put handcuffs on him because he was getting violent, and I started to cry I was so nervous. One of the cops saw me and asked me who I was, and then let me come along. They put him through something called a cat scan when they got to the hospital, and then called my mom.

“He died just before midnight that night. Apparently he had a brain tumor that had gone unnoticed until it was too late. Dallon was seventeen years old, and I miss him every day. I didn’t take his death well, and honestly I don’t know how. This is the first time I’ve been able to say his name without crying. I just want my brother back.”

The doctor took a second to write a few things on his pad, and then he looked up at Pete. His face was unreadable, and Pete desperately wanted to rip the notepad from him and read what he had written in his chicken-scratch doctor’s handwriting. He restrained himself.

“And how did you cope?”

“Cigarettes. Alcohol. Sex. Anything that would make me forget for a while. It didn’t start that way, though. I got into the wrong crowd when I went into high school; before then, I just didn’t let anyone in. I still couldn’t let people too close, so I let in people who weren’t really true friends: the dealers and the sluts. It was a downward spiral. I couldn’t afford to let anyone else in, because I never got to cope with Dallon being gone. I just wanted to forget everything and everyone and start over.”

“I think you’ve found your chance.”


	20. Death Of A Bachelor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon

After a long struggle with mild drug withdrawals and a recurring headache that Brendon desperately wanted to drink away, he was clean and straight-edged for the first time in months. Of course, none of his recovery would have been possible without Sarah, who had gone through the same thing and was more than willing to help him out. Maybe it was something about the innocence of his face as Brendon searched the house for his clothes, and maybe Sarah just had a soft spot for the incredibly tall stranger who seemed so, so lost, but she could not let him continue down the path with which she was far too familiar.

They began dating a few weeks after Brendon’s withdrawals had stopped, and were together for almost a year when he proposed, staring up at her with the most vulnerable look on his face and a diamond resting in a small box in the palm of his hand. She took a second to respond and Brendon almost started to cry he was so nervous, but she finally said yes. Brendon cried anyway, so glad that he had not been turned down again, and Sarah had to pull him up off his knees for a kiss.

The night before the wedding, Brendon found himself in a bar off the strip mall, alone at a table for two and waiting for a server. For his bachelor party, Brendon had decided not to do anything superfluous, settling for a solitary night as his last night alone for hopefully the rest of his life. He ordered a small drink, not willing to go down the alcoholic road he had been traveling on before, and he spent the night listening to the live band playing and relaxing.

The prep for the wedding had been exhausting, but Brendon was sure it would be worth it; Sarah was his life now, and anything he was going to do involving her was priceless.

He was not wrong.

They married in a small celebration hall, filled to the brim with family and friends (mostly on Sarah’s side; during Brendon’s wild stint he had lost many of the good friends he had made). Sarah looked stunning; when she hugged Brendon, the lace on her magnificent dress tickled his neck and he smiled.

“No confetti on me this time,” he whispered to her, instigating a laugh from his now wife.

“Just a grain of rice,” she giggled, holding up the particle for him to see. Brendon laughed now too, and they walked hand in hand towards the reception, more than ready for their happily ever after.


	21. She's My Winona

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Three: The Heir
> 
> Patrick

“I left a letter on the mantle.” Pete was on the phone, voice calm and quiet. His eyes were moist and his nose was pink with cold, and he was starting to lose feeling in his fingers. The night was cold and dark, and he shivered slightly.

“Pete, where are you?” the voice through the line asked, slightly anxious. Pete looked around; where indeed? On top of a building, a very tall building at that. He sat, feet dangling over the edge of the structure, swinging back and forth childishly.

“What’s the full date?” He ignored the question, checking his watch. Just past nine.

“It’s May 18th, 2000, Pete, now where are you? You’re worrying me.” Pete sighed, holding the phone away from his face to look at the caller ID, even though he had dialed the number. Holly Stump. He hated the last name, just like he hated the asshole who had left his only sister three months after they had married. She still kept his last name though; Pete was all too familiar with that. “I haven’t heard from you in a year, and now you’re telling me you left a note on the mantle? Where have you been? I needed you when he left, and you disappeared,” Holly told him, her voice wavering slightly. Pete cringed, a tear sliding down his cheek. He never meant to abandon her; everything had just gotten to be too much. He guessed that had not changed.

“Holly, I… I called to say goodbye. I’m so sorry, but I just can’t do it anymore. I love you,” he said, finger hovering over the button that would end the call. He could not bring himself to do it just yet, though.

“No! Pete, oh my god, don’t do anything. I’m calling the cops, you stay right where you are and don’t you move one inch,” she yelled into the phone, panic flooding through the line. Pete almost smiled; it was so predictable of her to go all older-sister on him and start barking orders.

“It’s okay, Holly, it’s going to be fine,” Pete began, but he was cut off in a very unexpected way. A baby began crying in the background, and then Holly’s voice sounded out again.

“It’s a little boy. His name is Patrick, and he has blonde hair and blonde eyelashes. His eyes are blue, and he weighed seven pounds and two ounces when he was born on April 27th of this year. He’ll never know his daddy, so I need him to know his uncle. Would you please come home? If not for me, for Pattie? Please?”

Pete arrived at Holly’s house ten minutes later, tears streaming down his face and a teddy bear in his hand.


	22. Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick

Patrick was five when the bullying began. He was a bit of a pudgy little guy, all soft edges and roundness, and the other kids teased him for it. A favorite nickname was ‘doughboy,’ and the other kids liked to chase him around the playground mercilessly, telling him, ‘run your chubby away.’

Patrick never complained. In fact, his funny five-year-old logic told him that as long as he was nice to everybody, they would eventually stop treating him badly and everyone would be his friend. Unfortunately, this did not work right away and he was forced to eat lunch alone and hide from the kids in his class during recesses. His one friend, a tiny boy named Josh whose favorite colors were pastel pink and blue, tried to stand up for Patrick and only succeeded in getting made fun of just as much as Patrick. Together they avoided the bullies and played pretend that everyone was nice and everyone was friends.

Instead of hanging out with the other kids on the weekends, going to parties and play dates, Josh and Patrick stayed holed up in one of their bedrooms with music stolen from Patrick’s uncle Pete’s stash. From a very young age they were singing along to Guns n’ Roses, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, and the ever favorite ACDC that Patrick got in big trouble with his mom for listening to. The music became a sort of escape for the two young boys, who liked to pretend they were in a band together, touring the world and friends with everyone they met.


	23. The Kids Aren't Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick

At six years old, Patrick already knew far too much about the world. He had hit a bit of a growth spurt, so he had stretched out and was less round and soft. Josh had grown too, and his chubby little cheeks had hollowed some, his curly hair growing long and bouncy on his head. They spent the summer isolated from the world, Uncle Pete teaching Patrick how to sneak out of his bedroom on the condition that he would only be hanging out with Josh at Josh’s house. They spent many a late night going through old albums, peering at the pictures of band members who had passed away.

One such night, they sat looking at an old ACDC album when Bon Scott had still been in the band, lamenting over his early death. All of a sudden, the hall light came on and footsteps came down the hall, Josh’s mom asking him who he was talking to. Patrick jumped up, tumbling out of the window and down to the pitch black street, running to hide behind a bush in Josh’s backyard. The lights went off before Josh came to the window, waving at Patrick and whisper-shouting that he’d see him tomorrow.

Together, Josh and Patrick went back to school with chips on their shoulders and a point to prove. Patrick no longer would tolerate the old nicknames, standing up to his bullies. His growth spurt had sent him shooting past all of them, and eventually his taunting stopped. Josh handled his teasing with far less grace, instead using his fists as point makers, and he spent a lot of time either in the front office or in detention.

It was during this time that Patrick would inevitably be left alone after school to wait for his only friend to get out of whatever trouble he had gotten into. Sitting alone in the hall outside of detention, a few of the kids who were not quite done with their bullying would corner him and whittle away his self esteem. Josh was never present for these sessions, but he noticed Patrick’s steady descent into depression, and they would sit for almost an hour, silent and sad. Patrick would inevitably put on a smile and then invite Josh over, and Josh would accept the invitation without a second thought, unable to think of any other way to make his friend feel better.

It was also during this time that Patrick began to go visit his great-grandfather.


	24. What A Catch, Donnie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick

“Hi grandpa!” Patrick smiled warmly at the old man who had opened the door to his small house, inviting his great-grandson inside. Josh was in detention and then grounded for the week, so Patrick had plenty of time to visit with his great-grandfather. Gerard loved to tell the little boy some of his less colorful war memories, back when Mikey was still alive and their division was training with the British. Before D-Day and Utah Beach. In turn, Patrick told Gerard all about school, Josh, and eventually, the bullies and how they made him feel.

“Hey, Pat! How’s my favorite grandson? How was school?” Patrick gave Gerard a hug and then walked in, going straight to the living room where they always talked for hours. Patrick just shrugged; it had been a rough day.

“I feel like my thoughts and how I feel about myself match, and I don’t like it,” Patrick confessed, uncomfortable with discussing his feelings –except for with Gerard. There was something about his great-grandfather that told Patrick that he really understood. He got the same feeling from Uncle Pete, but more so from Gerard, and so he told Gerard more about what was going on.

“Is it those kids again?” Patrick just nodded, and then changed the subject.

“You know the saying ‘the captain goes down with the ship?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Uncle Pete’s music collection.” Gerard had to struggle not to roll his eyes, something he had picked up from both his son Frank and Patrick himself.

“Of course. Okay, go on.”

“I tried to ask mom, but she got mad at me and said it was something called blah-fem-ee. If the captain goes down with the ship, does that mean that God’s gonna go down with the world when it ends? Cos isn’t that kind of like God’s ship?” Patrick looked up at his great-grandfather curiously, and Gerard was struck by how fast Patrick had been forced to grow up: not by his parents, but by the other kids. Here he was, an innocent six-year-old, already struggling with early signs of depression and asking questions that were far from his grasp. Okay, so maybe the questions might have had something to do with the fact that Pete had a hand in Patrick’s raising.

“I guess that’s true,” Gerard finally responded, caught off guard by the question. Indeed, he did not even know the answer.

“I just want everyone to be happy.” Patrick said, hugging Gerard goodbye and then heading out the door.

“Me too, buddy,” Gerard said after Patrick had closed the door. “Me too.”


	25. Jet Pack Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick

Everything went wrong. It was raining, and Patrick was running, and he had blood on his lip and tears running down his face, left to mix with the raindrops.

Josh got out of detention early, and the bullies had been especially punch-y today. Josh had opened the door right as the ringleader had swung for Patrick’s face, catching both Patrick and Josh off guard. Patrick fell down, his lip split, and Josh yelled something ugly before jumping on the guy who had hit his friend. Patrick scrambled to his feet just in time to see Josh get surrounded by the bullies, and they began to beat him up; Josh was outnumbered four to one. Patrick ran, unable to help and beginning to panic. He ran through the front office, yelled something about the fight, and then waited just long enough for one of the teachers still at school to notice and run towards the sound of the commotion.

Patrick hovered in the office just long enough to see Josh and the other four kids dragged into the office as well. Josh was having trouble standing. Patrick ran.

Patrick did not even know where he was heading until he showed up on Gerard’s doorstep, knocking hard enough to bruise his little knuckles. Gerard opened the door in confusion, barely given enough time to register who was at the door before Patrick threw himself on his great-grandfather, burying his face in Gerard’s side and crying about Josh.

It was almost seven o’clock at night when Patrick stopped crying.

It was eight o’clock when his mother showed up looking for him. She was in a long black coat, and she waited in the rain nervously, hoping upon hope that her little boy was at Gerard’s house and not anywhere else. She had already checked Josh’s house, and there was nowhere else she knew to look.

Gerard got the door, inviting her in with a nod when she asked in a hushed voice if Patrick was there. When she saw her boy, she began to cry, causing Patrick to start crying again. They hugged, the mother glad to have found her son and the son ashamed in himself. Patrick could not believe he left Josh alone to fend for himself.

“Come home, baby,” Patrick’s mom told him. Patrick shook his head, mumbling Josh’s name quietly and looking up at her with wide, heartbroken eyes.

“Josh got beat up today, and Patrick doesn’t know if he’s okay. I think that’s why he won’t leave,” Gerard told her softly. She looked between her grandfather and her son for a second before speaking.

“Oh, honey. I talked to Josh’s mother, and he’s going to be okay. No broken bones, just a few scratches and bruises. He’ll be just fine. In fact, we can visit him first thing tomorrow morning, okay? Let’s go home.” Finally, Patrick relented, taking his mother’s hand and following her out to the car.

The rain stopped just as they got to their house.


	26. Part Four: The Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

“Happy Thanksgiving!” Patrick’s mom ushered him into the house, past a relative he did not recognize. He struggled under the weight of the box he was carrying with both of the pies his mother had baked earlier that morning, and he was glad to set them down on a clear space of the counter before he sneaked off to see who else was already there.

“Grandpa!” Patrick exclaimed, referring to both his great-grandfather and actual grandfather, who were sitting and talking on the couch in the living room. Patrick ran over and hugged both of them, grinning from ear to ear.

Gerard smiled down at his great-grandson, happy to see the little boy. He realized with a start that Patrick was growing up with quite the resemblance of Mikey, when Mikey was around Patrick’s age.

Speaking of Mikey, Gerard looked over with interest when the doorbell rang yet again, and he was delighted to see Tyler walk in with his family. Tyler’s only son, a tall man named Brendon, had a wife now, and they walked in together. When the doorbell rang once more, Gerard’s son Frank (Patrick’s grandfather) stood to answer it, exclaiming when he opened the door to reveal Pete. Patrick ran over to hug his favorite (and only) uncle, and together they walked into the kitchen to say hi to Patrick’s mom Holly and check on the dinner.

Surrounded by family, Gerard looked around and smiled to himself. He did not notice Tyler come up and sit down next to him until Tyler spoke softly, smiling at all of the people as well. Thanksgiving had always served as the family reunion, so everyone was in attendance.

“I always saw you as a father figure.” Gerard looked over at him in surprise, and then his features softened into a smile again and he patted Tyler on the knee.

“I always saw you as a son, and I am so proud of how far you’ve come. We have such a beautiful family.”

“Quite the legacy.”


End file.
